Executive 'carved-up' - Ritchie

Margaret Ritchie said there was a Sinn Fein/DUP "carve up"

Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie has accused some executive colleagues of altering the minutes of their last meeting.

She told the BBC the record did not reflect the 8 October meeting and claimed there had been a DUP/Sinn Fein "carve up" of the executive.

The row follows the SDLP minister's move on Tuesday to withdraw funding from a UDA-linked project.

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness and Nigel Dodds, DUP, criticised the remarks.

Ms Ritchie made the comments on the BBC Hearts and Minds programme on Thursday, just hours after the latest meeting of the Northern Ireland Executive.

At issue is whether the executive had asked Ms Ritchie to seek legal advice over the issue of funding a UDA-linked project and share it - or whether, as the minutes passed suggest, she was supposed to report back and give other ministers time to consider the legal advice.

She told the BBC: "What I am saying is that what I and my executive colleagues agreed last Monday night changed, and we were presented late last night or early this morning with a draft minute which was substantially different from what we agreed."

The UDA insisted it would decommission in its own time

Asked who she thought was responsible for this, Ms Ritchie said: "I think this represents the carve-up between the DUP and Sinn Fein."

In response Nigel Dodds said: "Everybody accepts the aims and objectives that Margaret Ritchie has set out as far as paramlitarism is concerned as far as the UDA is concerned.

"We've got to go about this in a legal way, in a proper process, in a way in which the executive has laid down.

"And because Margaret Ritchie finds herself on the wrong end of the argument on that, then she resorts to all sorts of wild and scurrilous allegations."

Earlier on Thursday evening, Sinn Fein and SDLP ministers clashed after a tense executive meeting at Stormont Castle.

Ms Ritchie expressed dismay over how colleagues responded to her decision to axe funding for a UDA-linked initiative.

The executive did not vote on the principle of her decision to cut £1.2m in loyalist funding. But it did adopt the minutes which Ms Ritchie contested.

Voting

It put on record she had agreed not to act without consulting colleagues.

On her way out, Ms Ritchie accused Sinn Fein of voting with the DUP against her and both parties of trying to control other ministers.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said he was very disappointed and said the social development minister was "losing the run of herself".

A 60-day deadline for the Ulster Defence Association to begin giving up guns expired last Tuesday.

The deadline was set in August after repeated violence linked to the UDA.

However, the UDA said it would adhere to its own timetable for getting rid of its weapons.